


130 Prompts #57 - Whatever

by FountainPenguin



Series: Yellow Train [1]
Category: Fairly OddParents
Genre: Backstory, Emotionally detached narrator, F/M, Married to a sex-repulsed aromantic asexual and not loving it, Neglectful Parents, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, mention of original character death, out of wedlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-07-01 15:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15776967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FountainPenguin/pseuds/FountainPenguin
Summary: "Whatever" - The first word to pop into Seneca Cajallena-Buxaplenty's mind when she learned about her pregnancy.





	130 Prompts #57 - Whatever

  **57\. Whatever** (~11½ years pre-series)

_Year of Fire; Summer of the Scarlet Oil_

* * *

These things were supposed to happen to other people. Lesser people. Seneca gave Bennett the news while peering at the third mirror in the second master bathroom- the one in the house's west wing. Tiffany Tang had loaned her this gorgeous pair of earrings last week (as a "trial run"). Emeralds and peacock feathers. She didn't have emeralds yet. They matched the shoes she'd been gifted from Lennis Kashfirguld. And, better yet, they matched her eyes. Much better than the sapphires ever did. Tsk tsk. Had it really been six weeks since her last haircut? Trust Seneca Cajallena-Buxaplenty to still be flaunting her fabulous looks. She'd chopped the soft blonde waves to her ears. They framed her face just right, even now.

The earrings really didn't need fiddling with. Seneca had worn all sorts of jewelry over the years. Most importantly, the massive diamond on her finger. But, she wanted Bennett to see them. The puzzled stare was a delicious step up from his usual absent-minded glances.

"What?" Bennett said, still standing in the doorway. One of his hands rested on the edge of her mirrored sliding closet door, as though he thought he had a right to touch it. He had no clothes in there. The north end of the west wing was his. The south end was hers.

"Pregnant."

His hands. Beautiful hands, smooth hands, flawless hands. Broad hands genetically, softened by three and a half decades of butlers and lotion. Bennett's skin had always been gorgeous, his complexion as tan as crispy toast and topped with spikes of buttery hair. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He shoved them in the pockets of his coat. White coat, soap-smelling coat, waterproof coat. Green bills bulged. Green eyes squinted. "Hmm. I know it isn't mine. I can confirm."

His voice drawled. Softly, though- gentle in her ears. Creamy voice, golden voice, siren voice. Seneca fought the urge to drape herself over his arm, to let him whisk her through the mansion in her crisp white heels to a forgotten silver dance in the bronze-walled bathroom. Floor tiled in the Cajallena family crest. She'd insisted on that.

"Oh, I know  _that_. He's seventeen weeks along, by the way. I've been wanting to tell you. But I wanted to know for sure if he was a boy or a girl."

He glanced at the floor. "Seventeen? So it happened at the summer dinner social, then."

"Almost." Seneca moved to the second earring. Gray teeth, poor reflection. She really ought to stop smoking, especially now that she was expecting again. She stuck out her tongue.

"Lennis Kashfirguld was not at the party." Bennett's lips turned into a thin cord. "I would have remembered. There were no black-haired men at that party."

"Not that party. The one just before it. I found someone better than Lennis this time."

She waited for Bennett to list off his suspicions, glancing up at his image in the mirror. He continued to stand in the doorway, but now with his head tilted to one side. Slight tilt, doggy tilt, adorable tilt. Her hands trembled. She fumbled with the earring clasp.

"What?" she asked. "Don't you want to guess who? At… the party before the summer dinner party? Aren't you going to guess?"

His arms moved until they were folded. A turtle in a quilt. A sloth in molasses. Ooh, she'd have to remember to write that one down. That should go in her latest manuscript.

Bennett leaned his hip against the frame of the door that led to her bedroom. The thin divider curtain (satin, semi-transparent, glittering with captive rainbows) fluttered behind him. "What was it you liked to be called again?"

"'Darling' is fine."

"Oh, right. Yes.  _Mmhm_. Darling, this is nonsensical. Why would you go and play these games? There are security cameras in every room in this house."

Seneca shrugged. Bennett crinkled his nose. Precious nose, perfect nose.

"Hm. I'd expect that to bother you."

"It doesn't," she said, clipping the earring into place at last. She fluffed her hair. Pale blonde, dyed blonde, too blonde. Should have been silver. She'd always been his silver. Fine. Seneca turned to face him, bracing her hands on the pristine counter behind her. "Well, I'd expect it not to bother you."

Bennett tilted his head the other way, almost bumping it against one of two flat-screen TVs hanging across from the claw-footed bathtub. "It doesn't. I'm not the one who slunk off behind my beloved's back."

"I enjoyed it," Seneca told him, casting the accusation across the room. She wished there was something heavy on the counter to throw. She wished he'd do something to make her throw it. Caress it, clutch it, hurl it.

"I'm the richest," he said.

Seneca tightened her grip on the counter's edge. "Some people would be bothered if they found their wife was with child from another man."

"Were you paid?"

He sounded like he meant it. Completely. Seneca let go of the counter.

"Benny, it doesn't always work like that."

One eyebrow went up. There shouldn't have been a smile. Half an eyeball, two eyeballs, smug satisfaction. Like a hunter closing in on a naughty vixen, moving slowly with thumping footsteps just for the effect. Cocking guns. Cocky smirk. Her hands clenched.

"No. No, I wasn't paid. I didn't do it for money. It's that I liked the man enough to give that part of myself to him. That's why I did it."

Reaction? Seneca searched his face. Cool face, thoughtful face, golden face. Half-pleased face? Oh. Jaw drop. Heart stop. Thump. Thump. Tumble. Thud. It all went to ashes. Shouldn't have been pleased. Cheshire pleased. Yet he was. She licked her lips. Again. Tundra dry. Cold.

"Some… some husbands wouldn't stand for that. Did you want to guess who it was?"

"Was he blond?" Bennett asked with hoping forward steps.

She almost lied. But wouldn't. Couldn't. Not to him. Her eyes flickered down. "I said it was the party before the summer dinner social. You remember. Do… do you remember?"

He had to think about it. Think about the parties. Count them. "Oh, yes. My family reunion."

_"Sí."_

"Interesting choice."

Seneca inhaled. _"Sí."_

"Blond then." Satisfied cream. Bennett's eyelids fluttered shut with soft pride. "Blond like his father this time."

_"Sí."_

"I assume it was on purpose?"

Blink.  _"S-sí. Sí._ Benny…"

"Of course, all my brothers are married."

_"Sí."_

He counted them off on his fingers. Slow fingers, gloved fingers. A desperate wish for fingers in her hair. "Oliver. Charlie. Dylan. Jack."

"Oliver, Oliver," she blurted. Couldn't stand it; wouldn't try to stand it. Shifted her feet. Bennett glared at her. Her flesh rattled with goosebumps.

 _"I_  am not finished, Seneca." He switched to his other hand. Pressed each finger down, bending back deep. "Toby. Albert. Alicia. Dexter." The first again. "Elliot. Luke." Hands dropping. Hands in the air. Shock that, to him, felt real. "Too many children. Why would anyone want so many children? Can you even imagine what level of lust ran through my parents' heads?" Hands to hand-purses, fingertips forced together and upturned. Quick steps, stalking sneer. Thicker drawl. "E _lev_ en times in bed together? Jail alone wouldn't have been enough to keep those rabbits apart. It's because they went to church."

"Church?" Seneca echoed. Mouse voice, mouse in mousetrap voice.

"Devout parents," he muttered. His eyes wandered to the towel rack, and to the shelf above it that held too many dragon figurines. "Won't catch me chasing false angels any day."

"I like him." Silence. Try again. Cough. "I love him. Oliver. His wife's a shrew. She torments him. Shrieks at the kids. He said. I don't know. We've been writing letters for years. I have them. Do you want me to get them for you?"

Bennett looked at her. "He's my twin. Of course you thought you loved him. Personality doesn't matter to you. You just want the bed."

"Benny?" He always let her call him Benny. It never bothered him. Seneca reached out. She touched his shoulder. He tensed, but didn't shift away. She withdrew her hand. It clenched and went to her chest.

"I'm the richest," he said again, wiping his arm where her fingers had brushed. "You're still here." He lifted two fingers so his meaning was clear. Two betrayals. Two children. No accident. Gloved hands. Untouchable. Untouched. Long coat. Tight pants. Tighter belt. Internal anguish. Huffing and heaving like ships in storms. Blink. Blink. Seaside wet. Cold.

Seneca turned her back, tossing her hair. This was a less effective gesture than it possibly could have been. She could still see Bennett's reflection gazing back at her, and he could still see her face. He adjusted the blue tie at his neck with one hand. Blue. Oh, Bennett loved blue. It was all sapphires and lapis lazulis with him, but never silver.

"Mmhm. Darling, listen."

She did not reply.

"I'll spread word with tact. We'll allow your mother and all your friends to throw you first, second, and third showers for the baby."

Soft drawl, gentle drawl,  _delicious_  drawl. Shoulders sinking. Lips parting. Mouse heart racing. Knees of jelly. Want his hug. He went on.

"That way at least something good will come out of this incident. We'll want to make him as public knowledge as possible. The blond one. People were beginning to talk about us."

"Us?" She whipped around. When eyes flash, worlds collide. They quail. Bennett leaned forward, clutching his tie. Clenching, squeezing. Heartbeat. Crush it all. Dancing smile, deadly.

"Yes. I've heard them talk. They drift around parties claiming you and I don't love each other. That our elaborate marriage was all for status and wealth and show. That you were failing in your duties as a wife."

Seneca tightened her teeth. Of course. Such a sexist world  _would_  pin the blame on her, accusing her of a frigid nature even though it was Bennett, always Bennett, who expressed constant distaste regarding activities of the bedroom. In ten years of marriage, Seneca could count on one hand the times they had shared a night together. Only once had he ever initiated the offer: Their honeymoon in Iceland, with the northern lights ablaze above the clear roof of their penthouse dome. He had lain with her then only out of cold obligation to make her his, to stamp and tag her as one of his belongings with the same patient efficiency he did everything else.

"I see," she said. Her fingers itched. After this, she'd need a cigarette.

She'd known when she married him what she'd be giving up. At least, she'd thought she did, mostly. It wasn't supposed to be this bad. Bennett hadn't kept his lack of interest a secret throughout their courtship. And she, foolish bird she was, had convinced herself that he was only saying such things to be a proper young man. That if she had but one night beside him, she could change his mind. That everyone felt the way he did. That his blank, deep green eyes would light beneath her as soon as she caressed his lips with a kiss. Blooming kiss, flower kiss.

And as she stood there, her lower lip gave a single tremble. Who was out there spreading such rumors? Angel? Tiffany? Her sisters-in-law? It didn't matter who started it, so much as who passed it along to who at what time and why. Cruel words, nipping winds. How  _dare_  anyone imply she hadn't been a perfect wife? Ten years of patience made a saint out of anyone.

… Six years of patience, maybe. Liam was four years old.

And Liam's new brother just four months along.

Her husband ("partner" might be the better word, or perhaps "housemate") scanned her body language with unblinking laughter, then leaned away again. He released his tie. "Wait until the showers are done and the gifts are unwrapped. Then you can try to miscarry it, if you choose to. The cigarettes will help with that. We can still leave our fortune to Liam. Perhaps bleach his hair as pale as yours. In a few decades, we may have the technology to genetically modify it. I'm rich. It can be done."

"I don't miscarry," Seneca said, more stiffly than she meant to. "I'm a Cajallena."

Bennett simply shrugged, the quiet man. His gaze had turned misty again in thought. Grassy eyes, olive eyes, stranger's eyes.

"Well." The word was hot and awkward on her tongue. Seneca inhaled, then slid past him. Out of the bathroom. Into the bedroom. Her bedroom. The second master bathroom- the one in the house's west wing. South end. Her bed up a set of five steps, with a fireplace below and white reading chairs clustered around. One bookshelf. Her novels. If you did the math right when calculating the amount of work poured into those treasures, her hourly wage came out to be 50 cents or so. Writing was blood and pain; no one entered this business to get rich. Bennett was a dream come true, coated in the frosting of disappointment. A dream only half-reached. But she needed him.

She brushed off her dress with her hands. The diamond on her ring (heartless diamond) fixed nothing and broke bridges. Without turning back, she said, "I just wanted to tell you it's a boy."

Bennett lifted his shoulders again. Seneca scooted past a bed that was always half empty. The Buxaplenty crest had been printed on the rug. Silver rug, golden crest. Her present to him, the first birthday they'd been married. It was the only golden thing in the room, but it wasn't supposed to be.

Seneca clasped the braided rope dangling between her bed and the door. She gave it a yank. Within ten seconds, one of the inside chauffeurs arrived in his cushioned golf cart to escort her through the mansion halls. Seneca stepped through the door. The chauffeur shut it behind her, leaving Bennett alone in her bathroom.

"Señora Cajallena," he greeted, bowing low.

"Take me to the east wing," she said. "South end. I'm due to spend my daily two minutes with Liam."

The chauffeur lifted her hand and guided her into the golf cart. Seneca sat and set about adjusting first her hair, then her massive diamond ring. Broken ring. She folded her hands in her lap. The chauffeur climbed in the driver's seat, and sped her through the mansion.

Liam's bedroom was much too good for him. The floor was solid gray and white marble, all shiny and sleek. His bed was plush, the covers green and black and white, the sheets 900-count. Yet the child acted like he didn't even know how to use it. He spent more of his time at the plastic table on the opposite side. He had special pencils for drawing with. Mostly shades of greens and blues. An entire box of them. When the butler opened the door and Seneca peered in, Liam was standing over by the table, coloring busily. Didn't even look up at her. He always stood while he drew, clenching six or seven pencils in his left fist and just one in the other. He had a chair. She'd never seen him use it. What a waste.

Liam was a moon child. A chubby moon child. He'd been born with skin nearly as pale as the paper he so loved to draw on. Blue-gray eyes. Ghostly. White suit, tailored specifically to him. It had to be, with his round shape (Who fed this kid? Chipmunks?) Even with the green bow at his neck to ground him to earthy colors, he looked as though he could slip away and be lost among the stars. His hair (glossy blue-black, spiky even when combed properly, streak of oil in hot water) clashed so much with Bennett's gentle butter fluff that it would be obvious to every last person in town he wasn't legitimate. That's why Liam couldn't go outside, lest he soil the Buxaplenty name with stolen Kashfirguld blood. Not even his grandparents had ever heard of him, as far as she knew. Seneca hadn't told Lennis about Liam at all.

This new baby would be different. Oliver was a Buxaplenty. He had blond hair like his twin. So did she. If Liam was the moonlight, the new child would be sunshine. How funny, to be raising two little boys. If this had been a novel, one of them would be a girl. Sun girl, moon girl… Either worked. But a sunshine boy? That one might raise a few eyebrows.

Seneca drew in a breath. She clasped her hands against her lap. "I have news, Liam. I went to see the baby doctor yesterday. You're going to have a little brother. I hope you're excited and will play with him nicely."

"No," Liam said, coloring more. "No" was the only word he'd ever spoken. Imagine that. Four years old. Seneca took a step closer and got a better look at him. His lips were gooey red. So was the end of his nose.

"Liam." She ran her fingers through her hair. "You have jam on your face. You aren't supposed to be messy like this. Why are you messy?"

Liam rubbed his mouth with his wrist. He continued to color with a green stub. The pencil marks went in all directions. Seneca sighed through her nose and straightened her dress again. Neat dress, favorite dress. Perhaps Liam's butler would come in soon to clean the boy up. He really should be here now, actually. What was she even paying him for?

Seneca checked her watch (Quartz on the inside, pearl on the outside). It was nearly noon. One minute and thirty seconds to go. So be it. She knelt beside the tiny plastic table and studied Liam's drawing upside-down. Two lumps (one black and one purple) that were maybe intended to be dogs floated against a backdrop of pink sky. Curly white clouds along the bottom in place of grass. Well. She'd never claimed he was the  _smartest_  child. Absently, Seneca picked up a violet pencil with a yellow cap eraser. She drew a cat on the other end of the paper.

"No," Liam said.

The point of the pencil stopped. Seneca looked over at the boy. "Excuse me? No?"

Liam pushed her hand, his whimper breaking into a full-on whine. "No!"

Seneca threw the pencil to the floor. "Don't you dare start crying, Liam! I'm trying to help you."

"No no no," he said, scrunching his pudgy face. Abandoning the table, he stumbled over to pick the pencil from the ground. Then, with reverence, he set it on its own chair. The chair  _he_  should have been sitting in. Seneca frowned. She glanced at her watch again. Thirty seconds left to noon. Close enough; he wouldn't know any different. Pushing down on her knees, she stood.

"When your butler brings you dinner, don't make such a mess. Is that okay, Liam?"

_"Sí. Muchas gracias, Mamá."_

_"De nada,"_ Seneca answered without thinking as she walked away. Then she stopped dead, her hand resting on the doorknob. "What did you just say?"

Liam looked up, blinking his beautiful silver eyes. That child needed a haircut, his face captured by liquid shadow. He put his thumb in his mouth.

"Liam, did you talk? Actually talk?"

_"No."_

Seneca pulled him around the table by his arm. "I told Bennett you would say something real one day! Let's go tell him. I knew you would talk. You were just biding your time, that's all."

But as soon as they left his room, Liam started to cry. He rubbed his eye with one fist and kept trying to turn back to the room. Break away from her. Avoidance.

"Liam," she snapped.

 _"No, no!"_  He snatched his hand away.  _"No, Mamá, no!"_

Seneca remembered researching children for a novel she'd written once. Striking his face was more or less illegal. Striking him anywhere wouldn't help overall, not in the long run. What was she was supposed to offer him, again? Something that began with L, like lo… Positive reinforcement. That was it. Seneca scooped Liam into her arms. He kicked and screeched at the top of his lungs. His shirt came untucked. There was still jam on his nose and pencils in his fists.

"Liam!" Seneca bit her tongue as soon as she shouted his name. Shouting, unhelpful. Offering attention now wouldn't benefit either of them. She needed to wait until he calmed down, then reinforce his peaceful behavior with a sentence of praise.

Liam hit her face. Actually. With his hand. Seneca gasped and almost dropped him. As it was, he slipped far down in her arms. She turned on her heel, casting her begging gaze on the golf cart. But when she looked, the chauffeur standing by the car wasn't the chauffeur who had driven her to this end of the mansion. Not at all. That chauffeur had been pale, gray-haired, short… possibly with a mustache, or maybe a mole; she couldn't remember.

This one was tall. He had a darker skin tone than most of the mansion staff, with shiny black hair pulled into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. A purple bow held it all in place, reminiscent of the powdered wigs from days of old.

Bright gaze. Sparking gaze. Gentle gaze. Periwinkle eyes so light and deep, they could almost, almost be called lavender.

Seneca's eyes moved along the stranger's face. Sharp cheekbones pressed high. Jutting chin, one with angles. His suit was fitted just tight enough to emphasize the larger muscles in his arms. Even his heartbeat was incredibly muscular, because she could hear it even from here.  _Tum tum. Tum tum._ Even hear his blood rushing in her ears, rising in her face the longer she stared at him. He had a very still way of standing.

She blinked. She blinked again. Surely she'd recall a face like  _that._ Not even she was that oblivious.

"Señora Cajallena."

"I- I-" she stammered out. Her mind didn't match. Nothing fit. Everything was wrong. She stumbled half a step back, taking Liam with her. Fire face, blazing face. Shouldn't have spent those years exchanging letters with Oliver. A man. Heated man. Words? There were words. The only ones she managed to cough up were, _"No habla español."_

Panic. Close panic, warm panic. Seneca shifted in her heels, clinging to one of Liam's arms to keep him from dropping to the floor. Stars above, where was a proper butler to crack open one of the massive mansion windows when she needed one? Tight clothes. Tight face. Tight stare…

The man gazed at her, cool and unsmiling. He took a step forward, more gracefully than his muscular figure maybe should have moved. "Yes, I am here to give my dear young friend Liam the second course of his lunch," he said in perfect Spanish. "Peas and carrots. Mashed baby corn. Grape juice, perhaps. Very messy. I am afraid that no one in this household dressed in white is permitted to join us."

D-did toddlers normally eat two courses of lunch in a single sitting? That, um… that sounded right. Still, Seneca managed to regain her composure. Despite the man's good looks and charmingly serious personality, she narrowed her eyes at him. "I don't recall hiring anyone like you."

He bowed lightly. "My apologies, for I may have forgotten my manners. My name is Juan. I am filling in for Mermin Caroway today. I am his cousin's son."

Seneca looked the stranger up and down. His… cousin's son. Adopted, perhaps? And who was Caroway? Might he be the original chauffeur of the golf cart? Or was he related to one of the butlers instead? Perhaps even a cook? The name was peripherally familiar, and she thought it matched with the chauffeur's face. She could have sworn he was an only child… No, during the background check, she didn't recall any mention of family. Especially no one who spoke such eloquent Spanish- a detail which Seneca very much would have liked to know during the hiring process. Such a beautiful language.

"I see," Seneca said anyway. She lifted her chin, ignoring the chubby child who continued to kick at her legs. "I want you to know that Liam was a mess when I came to see him today. He is a Buxaplenty. He should appear well-dressed and well-groomed at all times. Even inside the house. Never mind driving me anywhere; I'd much rather he be clean. I can walk."

Juan bowed again. "My most sincere apologies, Señora Cajallena. I shall take the boy to be washed myself."

"I wish him to look presentable," Seneca repeated. "As polished as a china doll, even inside the mansion. He is a Buxaplenty."

"I understand, Señora. It shall be just as you wish." Juan's tone was sincere, his eyes understanding. He waited for her to hand over Liam. Seneca did. Juan moved two steps back. The way he held the child was strange, cradling him beneath the head like a limp thing.

Liam calmed down at once, as though the chauffeur's cousin's son could be more familiar to him than his own mother. Good. That made things easier. Seneca gave Juan a nod to dismiss him. She clipped away down the hall in the other direction on her stabbing heels, her diamonds glittering and swinging at her throat.

In the sitting room (Snow sofas, blood pillows, framed portraits of Buxaplenty ancestors from Orville down), Seneca found the gold-trimmed silk calendar in its place of honor on the wall. Most days were marked with invitations to fancy dinner parties, or days when the country club was hosting a particularly lavish event and more preparations than usual were called for. Next week, she and Bennett were due to attend some prestigious award ceremony for one of the universities a few hours away. Having grown up in their respective upper-class homes mainly tutored and home-schooled by private instructors, neither she nor Bennett had ever attended a real, actual public school. Bennett had spent a few years training in military academy, but the concept of hallways and fellow students remained largely foreign to them both.

Calendar promises, wealthy promises. Seneca counted five months forward, brought her fingernail to rest on April 14th, and frowned. That entire week was blocked off for the cruise she and Bennett were taking up to Alaska. They'd be traveling in company of the childless Tangs- and even more importantly, the Sparklerings, who had further hinted they  _might_  invite the Buxaplentys to take a weekend tour on their private yacht in between nights on their houseboat. The Buxaplentys had a great many things, but they had neither a yacht nor a houseboat. A fortune made in railroads had led them to prioritize the expansion of their land-based empire. Ever since she'd married Bennett and moved to California, Seneca had longed to leave the cozy Dimmsdale beach for the open ocean. Cancelling the entire cruise just to go and birth a snotty baby was NOT an OPTION.

Seneca touched two fingertips to the side of her stomach. Well. Maybe he would be early. Liam had been early. She'd read once that smoking helped with that.

And… then what did she plan to do with him? Raise him as the Buxaplenty heir even knowing Bennett would never see the need to give her a child of his own? Briefly, she entertained the idea of suffocating the baby against the mattress in his own crib.

No. No, she'd read and written enough mystery novels to recognize the chance of getting caught, even if she did attempt to pin the blame on sudden infant death syndrome. Adoption, then. Perhaps adoption was the way. Of course, the genre-savvy half of her brain picked apart the flaws in that idea, too. An orphan stumbling into sudden wealth and a family who would raise him out of rags was such an overused cliché.

Seneca drummed her fingers on her leg. Her eyes slid across the sitting room to her coat, resting on its hook beside the door. Brown coat, mink coat, soft coat. Seneca drifted over and plucked a dollar coin from one of the stuffed pockets. She held it on her folded thumb, and closed her eyes.

"He isn't Bennett's," she breathed. "And as long as he's here, there won't be one. But… maybe one day… And then  _that_  child could be the one we leave our fortune to." Eyes shut. Squeezed shut, nailed shut, bitten shut. "All right. Heads, I'll leave him on the first island the cruise docks at after he's born. Tails, I'll think about it a little longer."

She flipped. The coin spun through the air, missed her fingers, and buried itself in the thick hairs of the white carpet. Seneca crouched down, patting through the fuzz until her nails clicked against metal. She found herself staring down at the side she didn't want to see.

"That was a practice flip," she decided. She went to toss it a second time, but midway through, the doorbell rang to a familiar tune.  _We're In The Money!_  The noise reverberated throughout the mansion. How irritating, that. Seneca fumbled the coin. It bounced off the edge of the glass coffee table with a great clang and skidded underneath the sofa. She knelt down to get it (It was money, after all) while one of the butlers hurried over to open the front doors. Double doors, arched doors. Handles huge.

"Señora Cajallena? Your critique group are here."

She'd gotten the coin. It dropped on the table's edge. There wasn't a critique session scheduled for today. Seneca glanced down at what she was wearing. White dress, simple dress. Angel would be wearing pink. She only wore pink. Star would be elegant, and Crystal would judge her silently from behind her motherly smile.

But she had no choice. She went to greet them. Shoes on tiles. Great red tiles, outlined with squares of cedar wood. Dark spider chandelier, crystals and shaded lights. One white table with cloth and candle to the side. A bench.

There were indeed three women on the mansion doorstep, with gemstones streaked like rain through their neat hair, their wrists laden down with bracelets and watches. First there was Crystal Cashulott, wearing green, her auburn hair all afluff. How original. On the far right stood Star Khaz d'Pozzit with her dark curls and yellow dress. And between them (she always managed to wedge herself into the middle of things) was Angel Kashfirguld, her gloves pulled past her elbows. So blonde, so opposite her sweet-hearted, black-haired husband. Seneca longed for Lennis to up and leave her; she knew she could treat him better.

"Congratulations," Crystal burst the moment the door was open. "We're so excited for you!"

"What?" Seneca stammered out.

"The baby, silly goose." Star tweaked her nose, and Angel kissed her on each cheek. Seneca tightened her fists at her waist. Of course they'd have come to see her. See the Buxaplenty place. Gossip about it later on, especially at Lucilla McDolla's garden party. Which Seneca had _not been invited to_. Once she'd zoomed away on that golf cart, Bennett had certainly wasted no time in spreading news of her pregnancy to the people he thought were her friends. They weren't.

"Everyone's been waiting a decade for you and Bennett to finally have one," Angel crooned. If only she knew. She fluttered over to the couch (Pristine, perfect, always). She tossed one of the red pillows to the side (Carelessly, crookedly, always) and settled in the crack between two cushions. She crossed her feet at the ankles. Straight back, shoulders flat. Plastic smile, molded out of clay. "It will be so nice to have another little boy running around the neighborhood. Indigo has been wanting a playmate for ages."

Crystal batted at her face with a macaw-feathered fan. "I'm certain you won't object to introducing him to my little Opal someday soon, Seneca dear. After all, she  _is_  the girl nearest his age. Pageant queen six years running, and she's only five years old. Ooh, can you imagine it?" She squirmed her shoulders and brushed past Seneca into the entry hall. "Thick as thieves, those two will be."

Star's head bobbed like a rowing oar. "And of course, we'll have to keep him away from all the riffraff in the lower neighborhood. Wouldn't want him to become corrupted by the outside world, would we, darlings? Especially not by that rotten little Wendell Bender who terrorizes the playground at the park."

The three of them tittered and giggled together, eyes darting to one another's hair and rings. Crystal twirled her finger through the thin chain of her necklace. Star pasted on another round of lipstick right there in the sitting room. And Angel… was a Kashfirguld.

 _"I'm_  not enjoying this pregnancy," Seneca muttered. Star and Crystal gasped, clasping their hands to the rubies and pearls at their throats. Angel grinned at the taste of drama. Seneca folded her arms. "Morning sickness. Weight gain. It's been a struggle beyond imagining to give up my cigarettes. I can't drink even a little wine. Here I am, a walrus awaiting a fairy godmother to turn her into Cinderella."

"But think of all the exposure," Crystal tried. "The photo opportunities. Why, you'll make magazine covers and be the talk of Dimmsdale for years to come."

Seneca hadn't considered that. The boy in her belly became real all of a sudden, standing at her side a few years down the road. He'd dress in white, of course, and perhaps wear a ruby-studded bow tie to complement Liam's emerald one (even if Liam had to stay up in his room). Hmm… Yes, why not? A beautiful little boy with Oliver's blond hair, her own small nose, and the green eyes they each shared. "Oh, yes. I suppose that's true. It may not be all bad."

"Not to mention," Star prompted, "you'll have a wonderful baby in your arms a few short months from now, with the cutest little curls. Will his eyes be green, do you think?" Her eyes flickered up to the portrait of Orville above the fireplace, in his powdered wig and slick green coat, with dainty Margaret at his side. He'd been painted in front of the ancient Dimmsdale train station, with the engine perched like a condor on the tracks. The town outskirts were dotted with cacti and rocks. In the distance, a single figure dressed in red could be seen racing across the sands, his hands pressed to his face to conceal his middle-class tears. Star's accusing lips pressed outward. "Or if not green, maybe they'll be orange."

"Green, of course," Angel said. She took a second red pillow and tossed it down the couch after the first. "He'll be a tiny little Bennett, as cute as a button."

"Yes," Seneca murmured. "Bennett."

A dog barked on the floor above their heads. Seneca turned towards the stairs, furrowing her brow. She didn't have a dog. Had Bennett bought a dog and forgotten to let her know?

"Have you thought up a name for him?"

Silence. Seneca took a step towards the spiral staircase. The bark came again, lighter this time. Tiny claws scrabbled over smooth marble.

"Seneca, dear?"

Seneca snapped her head around. "What?"

Angel smiled up at her, scarlet lips bursting, hands resting in her lap. They pressed down on her dress. A canyon. "What's your son's name?"

"Oh. Liam. Liam. My good boy." Shaking her head, Seneca floated through the sitting room to the foot of the stairs. The sliding claws were impossible to ignore. She touched the curled tail of the banister, wondering whether she had time to call for the butler before she fainted dead away. At the top of the landing, a little black puppy appeared with a yap and a bounce. Dangling from its studded diamond collar was a sparkling amethyst tag shaped like a turtle.

Crystal and Star cooed and gushed in unison. The puppy wagged its tail. Yipping again, it raced down the stairs as fast as it could run. Even faster than it could run, in fact, since it tripped partway down and hit the bottom in a roll. Leaping to its feet, the puppy bounced to her ankles and thrust its paws up on the hem of her dress. Clean dress, perfect dress. Seneca jerked away. The puppy landed on all fours. With one last bark, it bit the strap of her sandal and pulled.

"What's her name?" Angel demanded, holding her hands out for the puppy without getting off the couch. As if she thought,  _Numero Uno_ , that Seneca would actually pick the slobbery thing up, and  _Numero Dos,_  that she would allow it in the sitting room in the first place, let alone on the furniture.

Saying "We don't have a puppy" would have been pointless. Bennett had probably bought the puppy months ago. "Um," Seneca said. Her mind fizzled like a spark underwater. Names. Names. Perfect names, stolen names, names all wrong. "Liam. It's a boy dog."

Crystal fanned her cheeks again, lashes fluttering. Dewdrop gemstones clung to the very tips. "Ohh, Liam is your  _dog_."

The puppy licked its tongue across her toes. Seneca made a grab for it. It darted away from her and crouched. Its rear end wiggled. She grabbed a second time, caught its head, and pulled the dog towards her. While its paws scurried for a hold, she flipped over its turtle tag. The Buxaplenty logo was printed on one side. On the other was a three-pointed crown symbol.

Seneca released the whining puppy. It jumped away. A few cheerful barks later, it was at the front doors. Shut doors. They didn't stand in its way. It leapt straight through the solid wood.

Seneca jolted to her feet. What? What did she just see?

"Seneca?" Star asked.

… No. Puppies didn't pass straight through doors. There must be a dog door there. In fact, there  _was_ a dog door there. Of course there was. There was a dog door. Seneca blinked the question from her eyes. She turned to Crystal again. "Shall I ask Ennui to bake us some cupcakes before he begins work on a three-course seafood dinner?"

"Oh, that would be delightful, wouldn't it, girls?"

Seneca called for the butler to deliver the message to the cook. Once he left, she asked Angel, "How old is Indigo now?"

"Seven, dear. Seven."

The afternoon was pleasant, with little cakes and tea. Compliments about her baby flew back and forth. As Seneca sipped and nodded along with the conversation, her mind trailed a decade into the future. There could be a party in the gardens- the Buxaplenty gardens. Crystal's Opal and Angel's Indigo would be circulating the floor alongside their parents. Mingling nicely, speaking softly. Or Opal would, at least- good girl, sweet girl. Crystal would raise her right. Indigo had flashed his spunky streak from the day he turned two years old. More likely, by seventeen he would have raided a thousand dessert tables, tossing muffins and ice cream dishes to his little band of cohorts.

That wasn't Liam's life. It could never be Liam's life. Not with his glistening black hair. He looked too much like his half-brother Indigo to be revealed to the public now. And Seneca eyeballed the coin on the corner of the glass table, beneath the bronze roses. The adoption process seemed so very far away. There'd be paperwork.

A tiny blond Bennett. Blond, public, champion, prize. Gold. Would Aurum be a good name for him?

Her heart didn't need her "friends." Her writing did. Crystal was encouraging, if a little vain. Star always spotted drips of foreshadowing that came off too heavy-handed. Angel's critiques could snap against Seneca's skin and bury deep into her brain, but she always came from a good place, and she was almost always right.

Cradling her teacup over her pink and white saucer while Crystal babbled on, Seneca allowed herself to daydream further. A critique session in her sitting room full of well-known names, trusted faces, as she balanced a round blond boy on her knee.

A truck horn blared outside, and the daydream shattered. Babies were not quiet like Bennett's prized hunting trophies and mounted taxidermies, or a polished manuscript in her hands. Babies were not for the public eye. Maybe when they were older. Adolescents, perhaps, charming visitors with wit garnered from years of work and study.

Crystal, Star, and Angel left late in the afternoon. Much too late, in Seneca's mind. She took a break to smoke in her smoking room (No matter what her ob/gyn recommended) and finally climbed the padded stairs and crossed the mansion to her office. She flicked on the lights. Three went on above, and two lamps on either side of her typewriter. White light; she'd always insisted on that. Brightness helped her work. She even had a massive window at her back. Silver was a comfort. Golden brown was a drug.

No one touched her typewriter. Seneca didn't even allow the maids and butlers in here, and they respected her with relief. She walked around the desk to read the first few lines she'd left there. Leering metal, on the typewriter. Bitter. Cold. She'd tried to write a child character, for once. It didn't really work. It didn't come across as real.

In a huff, Seneca tore the page out. Threaded in a new one. Blank white, snow white, precious white. She sat. Smoothed her dress. Twice. Warm hands, sticky hands, hopeless hands. She adjusted the spiral cord of the phone beside her. For an hour, she tapped words out, deleted others with white-out, and retyped entire pages. By the time she was done, her dialogue was floppy and her plot hadn't advanced more than two steps forward.

The story was about a princess who had been betrothed a week ago to a man she didn't know. Although she was ready to accept the new life before them, he made it difficult by jumping out of carriages and climbing down from castle windows every time marriage was brought up. Over and over, the princess had to keep go and fetching him back- once from a dragon, and once from a band of thieves and robbers, even. She had to remind her prince that marriage was his duty. And in the end, he realized she was right, and he fell in love with her too.

Or at least, that's how things were supposed to go. Seneca had convinced herself that Princess Iskilee deserved to be her titular protagonist. And yet, the story kept veering off in another direction, trying to tell itself from the point of view of Remilius Remington Rembrandt, crown prince of a country based off a more art-obsessed version of the Netherlands. The boy who wanted to investigate the new technology of gunpowder and turn the tide of a war. A boy being forced into a marriage he didn't want. A boy who found Princess Iskilee perhaps a bit needy, and always confusing. It sounded like his story would be wonderful to tell.

Seneca stared down at the partial manuscript stacked between her hand and the phone. Bennett was right about one thing. Even if he didn't love her, she could never afford to leave him. Writing was her everything, but it was so, so difficult to make a living on it alone.

And she was crying. Her head hit her arms, arms hit her desk, and she shook so much that the baby must have convinced himself his world was ending around him. Seneca groped blindly for the tissues, and found only the spiral cord of the phone.

If her mother caught her crying, she'd be scolded for a week. If the rest of her critique group ever figured out that Bennett hadn't lain with her since the honeymoon, the puzzle pieces would slowly come to light. Crystal would be horrified but dismissive. Star would demand an investigation in order to turn up the unborn baby's true father. Perhaps Angel would even figure out that her husband had not been wholly faithful to her, when he'd unknowingly left Seneca pregnant with Liam and they'd never met eyes again.

There was no one she could talk to about this. No one but the typewriter. Perhaps she'd abandon her current project and start a new one. One she would write without self-editing and judgement, just to let her feelings spill all out. No one ever came into her office. No one except for her and on the rarest of rare occasions-

The glass door creaked open. There hadn't been a knock. Seneca jerked up her head, grabbing again for the tissues. She sent the box flying. Oh no. She spun around in her chair, rubbing at her face with the diamond on her wedding ring.

"How goes the writing, darling?" Bennett asked. Careless talk, absent talk, worthless talk. He stood with his hands buried in his bulging pockets. Always did; Seneca didn't have to look. Every so often he'd come in here, and every so often he'd repeat the exact same motions.

"Go away," she whispered. Fox voice, cornered fox voice. The hunter stifled a laugh.

"You know there isn't anywhere I'd rather count the money than by your side."

"Drop dead," she muttered.

Bennett paused. "What?"

"Never mind." Smothered guilt, smothered pain.

Quiet seconds, short seconds, few seconds. Bennett walked around her desk. Seneca clenched the seat of her chair with the backs of her knees. With each step, his heels dug into the wood floor before his toes thumped down. The sound softened when he reached the rubber mat that bore her rolling chair, but not by much. Seneca looked up. He stood above her, hands pocketed still.

"Snooty," he said.

Vixen tail, bushing tail, flattened ears. Seneca shot to her feet and threw her arms around his neck. For while the fox feared the hunter, the fox was in love with her own self-destruction. Bennett stumbled back, bumping his elbow on the paneled wood wall. He winced and reached between their pressed bodies to rub the arm with his other hand. It made her cry, Seneca. She buried her face into his shoulder and shook herself half to pieces. He smelled of ash and smoke from the fireplace. His skin felt like cardboard.

"What-?" Bennett forced out, "Are you… doing?"

"I love you! I did it because Oliver is your twin, but I pretended he was you! And- and- There's a baby now, but…" Her palm dug into his cheek. "Benny… It's almost like having our own."

The smile that played across his lips when he gazed down at her was pure and sweet. He set his hands to her sides. Holding her, thrilling her, until she gasped like a heaving landed fish. "Oh. Mm… I look forward to it, darling. An heir of our own. Thank money he's a Buxaplenty."

"Not yours," through her tears.

"May as well be. Oliver and I are identical. Hm. What will we name it, if you don't miscarry?"

"Name what?" Her eyes were on his lips. Pale lips, chapped lips, perfect lips because they were his.

"The baby. I've never liked the name Bennett Junior."

"Oh, the baby." Seneca loosened her arms from his neck. Her hands dropped to his. Bennett started. He tried to remove them from her sides, as if he'd only just realized what he was doing and was mortified his own wife had caught him handling her. No. Seneca slid them down to her waist and kept his gloved fingers against her skin. "I don't know yet. I don't mind."

His smile strained. "I suppose we'll see."

"I suppose we will." Her focus flicked between his lips and his eyes. Misty eyes, precious eyes. Always distant eyes. Bennett had a quiet soul, and he loved to settle back and think. When he began to think, he began to drift.

In an instant, they were young again. Adolescents on a balcony. She'd been wearing gold, he'd been wearing silver. He sat on the railing, the trailing ivy vines along the walls tangling over his shoulders. A book in his lap (Closed, bookmarked right) and she knew he was the one for her because of that. Oliver was rough-and-tumble, all playfully flirtatious and blind to the consequences. Oliver was the kind to dog-ear books and leave them upturned on arms of chairs. But Bennett understood the importance of treating books right.

"You write?" he'd asked her, peering over his glasses (He'd worn glasses back then).

"Some." Her hair, naturally blonde but dyed even blonder, was braided in a fairy circlet that day.

"Fantasy?"

Her heart had quickened when he'd asked, and she'd stepped a little closer to brace her arms against the railing and lean over. She was tall; he was taller. "Mostly romance."

"Oh," like a plunging stone.

"Romance in the fantasy genre," she'd corrected. "You know. Princes and princesses. Second world high fantasy."

He lifted the book he'd been reading so she could see its cover. Seneca had never forgotten the pleading shimmer to his eyes. "Are there dragons?"

"Not yet, but I might take a request from a man I really liked."

"I love dragons. And taxidermy."

Hm. Who could have guessed that she'd love a pretend dragon too?

"What are you thinking about?" Bennett murmured in the present day. The afternoon light streaking in from the window behind her caught his face like a feather. Seneca breathed in the scent of fireplace on his suit, and wondered if the real reason he'd slipped up to her bedroom was to roast marshmallows again. Oh, cheeky Bennett. He loved sweets almost as much as he loved shellfish. He was always sneaking marshmallows under his coat. Graham crackers and chocolate too when he thought he could get away with it. Sometimes Ennui caught him.

"Mmm… I'm thinking of smoke. Hunting. Cigarettes. Two dragons."

"One dragon and one beautiful golden princess," Bennett corrected. His eyes darted over to the office door. The dozen glass panels in the white wood showed only the empty hallway beyond. He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. His fingers fluttered, threatening to pull away. Seneca gripped his wrists.

"Are you happy you married me?" she asked.

Bennett blinked. "Of course I am. You're wonderful."

She fingered his rings, each one less impressive than hers. "How wonderful?"

"Depends," he said, his tone a little thoughtful. His hands traced out the shape of her hips. Gentle feel, patient feel. "Mm… Do you suppose we're being watched? Because if we aren't…" Bennett caught her chin with his thumb, resting his forefinger on the underside. Seneca gasped. She stepped closer- couldn't get closer if she tried. He was right there. An embrace. Foreheads bumped. Seneca breathed in. With slow fingers, she untwisted his tie. Deep eyes, swimming eyes, endless eyes. Smiling eyes. Shutting eyes. Her foot slid behind her. He lifted her mouth to his.

The phone blared on the desk behind her. Bennett jumped, whirling towards her office door. His hands flew to block his face. Seneca closed herself in.

"Sorry," she said. "The phone."

"The phone," Bennett said, pink instead of gold. Spinning around, he took up a place by her window. He stared into the rear gardens without moving the slightest muscle.

The phone. Sloth hands. Seneca could have let it ring itself to death, but she wanted to know who'd had the unfortunate timing to interrupt them. Claw fingers, talon fingers. She took up the phone and brought it to her ear. "Yes? Hello?"

"Hello." Woman's voice, younger voice, nervous voice. "Do I have the Buxaplenty mansion?"

"You do." Seneca did not give her own name. Not yet. There might be gossip, and if there was, it may benefit her to play the part of maid. Behind her, she sensed Bennett hunch into his shoulders.

"Um. Could someone come down to our clinic? I'm calling this number because someone from the Buxaplenty mansion was brought in- Hit by a car at the dam. Small, black hair? He's alive, but- Could someone come down here?" The laughter was crooked. Distracted. Forced.

"Oh," Seneca said. Liam. "Oh. Of course. Thank you." She hadn't been to the clinic before, so she asked the woman on the other end to rattle off the address. Even after requesting it be repeated, Seneca found herself staring at the tip of her pen. Something wasn't right. The street names didn't match her expectations. She'd never been to the hospital with Liam- Liam was born at home. But this address… these street names… That was the wrong side of the city. The hospital may have moved. That couldn't be right. Yet the woman on the other end confirmed.

Wrong place, wrong place. Seneca lowered the phone back onto the hook. For fifteen seconds, she stood with folded arms. Then she turned. "I just received a call. On this actual phone."

"Did you now?" Bennett asked, shifting through a stack of Benjamins in his hands.

"It's about Liam. He's in the hospital. Apparently he was hit by a car." One arm stayed folded, but she lifted the other, flicking her wrist back. "How did they know he's ours? Has he gotten out before? Who else knows about him?"

Bennett's brow tightened with a crease. "Oh, yes. Oh, right. No, this isn't good at all. I will have to have someone look into this." His eyes widened in the corners. The Benjamins returned to his pocket. "Mm. If word gets out that we have an illegitimate child residing within these walls, we can kiss a quarter of our fortune, sponsor deals, and entertainment guests good-bye."

Seneca stumbled back with each item he listed, holding her hand to her heart. She clutched the corner of her desk. "Well," she stuttered, "I-it's an odd call anyway. Perhaps it may turn out to be a hoax. I'm going to smoke, slip into something more presentable for outside, and head to the hospital in case this really is about Liam."

"Oh?"

"I want to know. I mean, he's Liam."

Bennett pulled up his tie. "I'll send the chauffeur to prepare the helicopter."

"No, that will attract far too much attention. The limo will be fine."

"Yes," he said, already through the door.

The cigarette break wasn't as relaxing as it ought to be. When it wasn't at her lips, Seneca twirled it between her fingers, pacing the smoking room from one corner to another. How had Liam left the mansion without anyone stopping him? Someone must have seen him. A butler, cook, maid…

Or Juan.

Seneca started pacing faster. Juan. The Juan she hadn't recognized. The last one she'd seen with Liam. Her Liam, her moon child, her very good boy.

Liam should have stayed inside. Had Juan turned his back a moment too long? Or… and her author heart began to skip. A kidnapping. Kidnapping- should have seen it coming. Foreign face, unrelated face, let him get away. Seneca crushed her cigarette into its ashtray and went to change into her purple dress.

"Is the limo ready?" she asked Bennett when she found him in a hall.

"I didn't see the chauffeur."

"Oh, right," Seneca muttered. "He went off somewhere. Did you ask his cousin's son?"

Bennett gave her a sideways stare. "The chauffeur was not at his post. There was nothing else I could do."

They held a moment of silence to reflect on this most unfortunate loss.

"I suppose I could… walk to the hospital," Seneca said begrudgingly. "Even though it's an entire eight blocks away."

Bennett bristled at the suggestion. "I can't allow you to do that. Someone might see you, and then wonder whether we've fallen on hard times. Especially if you're caught in those 10-carat diamond shoes."

"Then you ought to have purchased the 18-carat ones for our half-anniversary like I asked."

"So you keep telling me," he grumbled. He ran his hands through the air above his perfect butter cowlicks, very careful not to muss the spikes up with his fingers. "Mm, yes… Eee… I'll have to drive you myself. In the  _green_  convertible, unfortunately. The red one is in the shop after its hood was dinged by a stone, and I sold the white one to Dimmadome last May."

Inwardly, Seneca gagged. Nonetheless, she maintained her poise. "There are some days when we all have to make sacrifices. Let's go to the hospital. In… the green convertible." She drew the purple sticky note from the pocket of her dress. "Here are the directions."

Bennett took the note and nodded once. "I used to drive as a teenager. Let's go, then."

They were only two minutes from the driveway when a pair of police cars zipped past them. The sirens weren't shrieking, but they caught the eye nonetheless.

"What was that about?" Bennett mused aloud. The wind ruffled his hair.

Seneca's eyes were further up the road. She watched both cars veer left. First into the turn lane, then into the thin parking lot. She glanced down at the sticky note in her hand.

Bennett had to stop at a red light. Once it blinked green, he turned the convertible into the same lot. He eased up on the gas. They coasted across rows of painted parallel lines. Gray lines, faded lines, broken lines. "This isn't the hospital."

"No," Seneca said, staring at the sign above the doors. "This is the vet clinic."

"Police."

She saw he was right. There was a man outside the clinic doors, dressed in a white shirt, a purple cumberband wrapped around his waist. Two officers were arguing with him, while a third watched with one hand braced against the nearer squad car. The man's tight black suit was gone, but with the flying ponytail, there was no mistaking that face. No one could forget that face.

Juan.

"Stop the car."

Bennett lifted his hands from the steering wheel. "We are stopped."

Seneca shoved open her door. She did not run, for doing so would not be proper, but she did straighten her ring. Then she marched through the parking lot. One of the officers noticed her and tried to warn her away, but Seneca said, "It's all right, I know him," and she was a Buxaplenty, so they let her through.

Juan was in tears. Scalding tears, acid tears. His hand wouldn't leave his cheek. Nonetheless, his chest didn't heave, and his legs didn't wobble. Seneca stopped a yard away from him.

"Where is Liam?"

"He- He-" The words bubbled in his throat. "He-"

Seneca snapped her fingers. Time wasters, time suckers. "I'll ask again. Where. Is. Liam?"

At this, Juan burst into all fresh tears.  _"¡Qué rápido pasa la vida!_ He is inside! On the machine- the breathing machine they hold in the back. The people will not let me into the back. There are rules. They say I am not an employee and not the family!"

His story was full of holes, because why would a vet clinic concern themselves with an injured child? Perhaps the clinic had been that much closer to the dam, and the hospital overloaded. Yet despite the flaws in logic, Juan seemed to be her best bet at finding Liam. More importantly, finding Liam before anyone else did and put two and two together. "Right. Release him, officers. He's with me. I apologize for any trouble he may have caused you."

The officers exchanged glances, but backed away. They didn't step inside the squad car, but waited there on the sidewalk. Watching. Someone must have called them; Juan must have been raving outside for some time. He lifted his head. His eyes met Seneca's, so pale blue they were almost… violet…

Seneca blinked, pressing down the warmth in her cheeks. Again. It really wasn't fair, that such a middle-class stranger could have this sort of effect on her. A captivating power.

She took a step to the side so he could open the door. He blinked back, then did. Seneca swept inside the clinic, glancing along the row of plastic chairs beneath the wide window. Three doors on the right-hand wall looked like they may be examination rooms to meet with patients and clients in private. If Seneca recalled correctly from researching a vet clinic once, those rooms connected to a hallway where little things such as medicine bottles and centrifuges were stored. Perhaps a break area, and of course there would be kennels somewhere or other. Behind that hallway, the technicians and assistants did their actual work, with the vet on duty popping in and out of the surgery room as appropriate.

The place seemed deserted, apart from a receptionist behind the wide front desk and one man browsing file folders in the open room just behind. On her left side were shelves stacked high with dog and cat food. All kinds. Cans, tins, bags. A potted plant guarded one corner.

But no sign of Liam, bent in half and picking at a cast on his leg. No Liam sipping from the water fountain, or coloring in his notebook with his favorite green pencil stub. Seneca fingered one of the diamonds on her neck with mounting confusion. Could Juan be right? Was Liam in the back of the clinic right now? Lying in a cardboard box on a counter with an assistant hunched over him, pressing his ghostly lips against a transparent tube? Seneca had researched vet clinics once, when she'd found the need to write a scene where her protagonist did the same thing in an attempt to save an anencephalic kitten. The kitten hadn't made it.

This was not a place for human children. Seneca swept her eyes around one final time, snapping up the traces of cat and dog hair on the ground. The walls were gray, the floor tiles white. Who would bring her good boy to a place like this?

After straightening her dress, Seneca walked up to the woman behind the front desk. Juan followed her, but Seneca did the question popping. "I'm here for Liam."

The two workers looked at each other. One had a name tag that read Cindy, and the other's name tag read Forrest. Forrest clenched his teeth. "Is Liam the little black lab with the white splash between his eyes?"

Seneca sniffed. "Liam is not a dog. I was told he'd be here."

Juan, close at her arm (Too close, so close, warm close) shook his head.

"Mrs. Buxaplenty," said Cindy. Gentle voice, gentle touch. "We can take you to the back room if you like. I'm afraid he's about to cross the rainbow bridge."

Juan shook his head again. A stapler and cup of pens further down the desk fell to the ground. "No," he said. "That is not the bridge. Wrong bridge. It is just a story- a fairy tale."

"Liam," Seneca said, "is a human child. This shouldn't be difficult to understand. Was a dog hit by a car? Is that what happened? Or was Liam injured? How much do we owe you?"

Juan raised his hand. "The dog is mine."

Seneca swiveled on her heels.  _"What?_ Is that what I came all the way out here for? You knew who I was talking about. Why would you sap my time like this? You- you brought your dog inside my home, without my permission?"

Juan swiped both hands down his cheeks, swatting off the tears. "I do not have time for this," he snapped, but his voice squeaked at the end. He snatched a pen from his left pocket and clenched it like a spear. "The dog is mine! I must see my boy."

Cindy glanced left and right. "The tag said Buxaplenty… You're not one."

 _"Let me see him!"_ Juan screamed in Spanish. Papers and binders erupted in all directions. One hand clenched his head, as though a sweeping migraine had kicked him with a hoof. Twisting brain, tortured brain. The next thing he shrieked was meaningless. He stabbed the pen forward. This time, "Let me see my boy at once, or my appendix may rupture!"

Cindy shrank back in her wheeled chair. Seneca squinted, stuck on the 'a' word he'd shouted. Forrest took a step forward, his hands raised. "I'm sorry, sir, but the Buxaplentys-"

"No!" Juan waved his pen through the air. "Liam! Liam!"

Seneca shifted to one side to avoid his frantic hand. She'd never seen anyone get so upset over a dumb dog before, so she observed his movements closely in case she decided to use this scene someday. Forrest cleared his throat.

"Okay. Sir-"

The front doors of the clinic flew open, and one of the police officers ran in. Juan jerked around, pen jabbing like a sword. His muscles rippled. Light zinged along his arm. It glinted off the rings he wore on each knuckle of his right hand. "Halt, I beg of you! You must do as I say and let me into the back at once! Read these perfect lips of mine: Only I can reverse what is happening!"

"Sir," soothed the officer, reaching for her hip. Juan flashed his pen. His chest heaved. His eyes rolled about the way a wild horse's would.

"You are all fools!  _Idiotas!_  You must let me go. Only I hold the power to save him.  _I am Liam's fairy godfather!"_

Fairy…

Seneca's mind skipped over the word, then zipped back to read it through again. Fairy?

Godfather?

_Liam's?_

Juan lashed his pen through the air. Light shinged off his rings again. The officer flew backwards, bowling over the man behind her. Thunder crashed outside. There hadn't been rain, but now it was dark. The wind picked up its howling. Lightning zipped through the sky…  _after_  the thunder, oddly enough.

"Juan?" Seneca choked out. Muddled questions, many questions. A thrill at the thought. She closed her fingers around his arm. Hot skin, stinging skin, magic skin. Juan jerked away. The lightning exploded again.

And the power. Went. Out.

Lightless. The front window gave just enough light to see.

There was one second of silence. Then the clinic burst into a frenzy. Barking dogs, bursting doors, technicians and assistants scrambling around in search of patients. Were there flashlights? People yelling about generators. Trying to stay calm. Absolutely not. The police officers were still on the ground, stunned from their fall. In the middle of the chaos, Juan stood frozen, his pen pointed at Seneca's heart like a loaded pistol. The horror in his eyes told her his brain had just caught up to his mouth.

"Fairy godfather," she breathed. Her hair waved behind her in the whirling indoor wind. "Oh, that's beautiful."

"No." He clapped his hands to his mouth. The pen fell to the floor. Click click tile roll. It skidded about in the whirlwind tearing into the clinic. Juan backed away, shrinking into his white shirt. "No. No, no, no, no, no. This cannot be happening! I did not mean at all what I said. It is an exception. An accident!"

"You said fairy godfather. Genius. My story needs one of those."

"I was wishbirthed," he sobbed. "The seal to my  _papá_ was never closed, and my emotions need no wand to affect the world. But I am no  _bruja_  or  _luz mala._ My heritage does not define me. I am good!" Both hands went to his temples now. His face spiraled into pain. "Aye! It happens!" With that, he flung himself past her, streaking for the row of examination room doors. "Liam! Liam, my precious, my beloved! Can you hear me back there?"

Seneca leaned back on her heels, clutching the diamonds at her neck. How could he be a fairy? Shouldn't he be small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, or shouldn't he at least have wings?

"Make a wish!" Juan slid down to the floor. His back was twitching uncontrollably, as though some sort of snake or ferret had crammed itself between his shoulders and his shirt. Perhaps one had, and it was eating him- his hands were shrinking, legs were curling in. "Liam, my godson, my son, my Liam, my baby,  _mi joven amigo,_ if you were but awake and could draw me a wish…"

Briefly silent. Screech of pain. When Seneca glanced over, Juan was on his knees. He clenched his head as though his brain were leaking. His tongue lolled. His clothing rippled. Second screech- "It happens! Stop it, I say! The link, it destroys me!"

Suddenly, ninjas dressed in sky blue uniforms burst out of nowhere, swinging in on ropes and crashing through the window at the front. Seneca flung up her arms, bracing herself for shards that… never… fell? She risked a peek. The window had a hole in its middle now, but no glass covered the floor. It was like the ninjas had just appeared from thin air. They ran forward despite the half-dark, seizing Juan by the shoulders. He cried out and tried to stand. Didn't stop them from twisting his arms behind him. One ninja knocked him to his knees. Another slapped him on the back of the head. Juan fell forward, chin colliding with the tile. His pen lay a few feet away, between him and Seneca's right foot.

Wait. That didn't make any sense. Ninjas in a vet clinic? An American vet clinic in a medium-sized town? To attack her butler's cousin's son who also happened to be a giant fairy fluent in Spanish? What kind of establishment was this?

There were so many noises. There wasn't any window glass. Randomly there were ninjas. Seneca pressed herself to the side of the front desk and decided to forget whatever it was that was going on. If it didn't make her money, it wasn't worth her time.

"Stop it, stop it!" Juan sobbed when one ninja forced a knee against his back. He looked so small and frail beneath them. "The appendix link bleeds me out! My Liam! We must save my Liam, or I shall go mad!"

"I am afraid," boomed a new voice, "it is far too late for that."

Louder than the thunder. Sharper than the lightning. Goosebumps crawled along Seneca's arms. She looked up against the wind. The clinic was filled with so many ninjas, they practically blocked all the light from the broken window. If Cindy, Forrest, and the police officers were still around, they were wisely keeping hidden. Probably under the desk.

As the rumble of the voice faded, the sea of blue ninjas began to part. An enormous man with bulging muscles and an amazing tan (even in the dark) stepped out from among them. His white hair lay cropped in a crew cut. Fitting, since unlike the ninjas, he dressed in a simple army uniform: a green tank top and camo pants. He cradled a thick walking stick with a very sharp point on one end.

 _"Juandissimo,"_  the newcomer thundered. Did he control the winds? They began to die down once he started speaking.

"Jorgen,  _por favor!_ " He pronounced it "Yorgen". Gentle accent, panicked accent, comforting accent. Juan tried to raise his head, only for one of the ninjas to shove him back down with his (her?) boot. One hand, groping hand, desperate and defeated hand. "Please, I beg of you! Save my Liam from the power outagae! I am so sorry. It shall never happen again, I swear it! Aye, you cannot torture me so. I cannot stand to lose another one… Jorgen,  _por favor_ , if I could but have another chance…"

Focusing on Juan's face became a sudden struggle. Seneca fought not to blink, because every time she did, his features only grew blurrier. On her fourth blink, Juan…  _changed_  there beneath the ninjas. His height was lost in an instant. The black ponytail remained. His muscles bulged beneath his shirt (which had begun to tear at the seams), but his body was much too small, like a child's. A little golden crown floated above his head.

Seneca blinked a fifth time. Oh. Oh! Four wings dangled (limp wings, twisted wings) from Juan's shoulder blades. Beauty wings, shimmer wings, dragonfly wings. His eyes glowed with purple fire. Tears as red as blood dripped down his nose and burned with dusky light on the floor. Fairy godfather, trapped and beaten.

 _"Por favor,"_  he whimpered again in the growing quiet.

Jorgen, the man in the army uniform, thunked the flat end of his walking stick against the ground. "Juandissimo, on the matter of neglecting your godchild long enough to allow his utterly gruesome and not-all-that-worthy-of-applause death, Fairy law is always very clear."

_"Sí…"_

Jorgen nodded. He took one earthshaking step forward. The winds peeled around his great body. Seneca clenched her eyes shut. "Because of what you have done," Jorgen growled, "I am left with little choice. Da Rules command that I must sentence you directly to… Level 15 probation."

The ninjas gasped in unison. One began a protest, which died again with a feeble squeak.

"I am sorry," Juan managed to croak. "But, it is with a smile that I shall face whatsoever Level 15 probation has in store for me. For this shall not free me from the utmost shame which my pain and guilt have placed upon my heart cavity."

"Hmm… Your keen efforts in working with Liam Buxaplenty have shown us that the age of four is far too young for godparents to attend to puny human children properly." Jorgen tapped his walking stick against one palm. "You have allowed your godchild to fade away in your arms, and I must punish you most severely for this."

 _"Sí! Por favor,_  I deserve it so! For if not for me, then Liam would not have…"

Seneca peered at the scene before her again. It hadn't gone away. Juan was up on his knees, hands clasped in pleading towards the great man hunkering over him. The ninjas… they weren't really ninjas. Fairies. Boy fairies, girl fairies, adult fairies in pale blue uniforms. Little fairies, shorter than they'd first appeared. Jorgen was the exception, stocky and bulging like a mountain. No wings, but he had a floating crown above his head like most of the others. Power filled his veins. One fairy who wore a purple tunic flew up to the lead fairy's shoulder.

"The appendix link is still active, sir," he reported. His voice squeaked. "Awaiting your orders. Do you want us to operate on what remains of the dog?"

Juan continued to weep on the floor. His head… his head was all wrong. Seneca didn't really want to look, but unable to flee and unwilling to speak up, she forced herself to observe all the information she could about her current surroundings. Juan's head had cracked open just above his eyes, as though the top swiveled on a hinge. Green liquid, interspersed with streaks of red, dribbled along the pencil-thin tile grout. River through a canyon, crashing in a storm.

Jorgen sighed. He lowered his upright walking stick, clutching it lengthwise between his hands again. "Yes. Wipe the minds of any witnesses and remove young Liam Buxaplenty's appendix. Have it brought to my office in Fairy World. With haste! And preserved properly, this time. I will deal with it once I finish here."

"No," Seneca said. Liam's word, stolen word, dying word. Forrest hissed to shush her from underneath the desk. The attention that swiveled towards her nearly dropped her to her knees. Silent army, fairy army. One of the fairies had his fingers clenched in Cindy's hair, pressing a yellow canister against the side of her head. Watching. Waiting.

Seneca drew in a long breath, and looked Jorgen directly in the eyes. "I don't know who you think you are, but if you're going to harvest body parts from my dead son, I expect you to make out a check to me first."

This led to silence, and silence led to anger. Spit flew from Jorgen's teeth. It splattered Seneca's cheek. Jorgen hefted his walking stick and jammed the end with the point near her eyes. It glowed with searing yellow light. Seneca flinched away. Golden bright, stabbing sight. Flicker high, flicker low, growing new points like thistle thorns.

 _"No!"_  Juan flung himself between Seneca and the walking stick. His wings beat like a broken marionette onstage. Swiping wings, angel wings. His throat bobbed up and down in time with his flailing arms. "Jorgen, you cannot go through with the wiping of her memories! She is with child!" He fell to his knees again, lifting his clasped hands. "Think of the little  _niño!_  El Rules forbid it!"

Sparking staff, blinking staff, looking like a sudden star. Jorgen glared down at Juan. Juan stared up at him. Anger faded to silence once again. Unhappy movement, halting movement. Grinding teeth. Seneca flapped her hand at her face, trying to keep from going so lightheaded that she'd faint.

Jorgen lowered his walking stick. "Then there is little choice. Juandissimo, I must reassign you as temporary guardian over Mrs. Buxaplenty until her child has been born."

 _"Sí,_ Señor Jorgen," Juan squeaked.  _"Muchas gracias."_

"What?" Seneca narrowed her eyes. "Did you ruffians hear me? I'll have you know that I expect full payment! Magic is entirely real. Liam is now dead- after having a curse dropped on him that turned him into a dog, if I'm understanding this correctly. Why, I could sue you all for the stress this  _incident_  and subsequent therapy will put me under. What about payback? What about justice?"

Jorgen's hand shot forward. He grabbed Juan in his fist and squeezed until the fairy shrieked and started spitting pleas. Then Jorgen jerked his hand over to Seneca. She flinched back.

"I am not here to wait around and answer all your pathetically obvious questions. That is what  _he_  is for. You can ask him. As for me, I have two appendixes to separate and a great deal of paperwork to do."

He dropped Juan to the floor, then crashed his walking stick (Star staff, sun staff) down too. The force of it sent a shockwave across the clinic. Seneca tumbled, smacking tile with her bare palms (Clean hands, filthy floor). She took a moment to cough and heave. Gash on her face. Gash from her ring. Big diamond, clumsy diamond. Her dress was dirty. She'd have to send this Jorgen man the bill. When she raised her head again, all the fairies were gone.

All the fairies except for one. Juan. Juan sat beside his fallen pen, sobbing into his hands. The clinic lights flickered on and off. First too bright. Then much too dim. The drinking fountain behind the shelves of pet food started to spray. Off again. On again. As predictable as breathing.

Seneca, for her part, climbed to her feet. No point in sitting on a dirty floor if she didn't have to, after all. "Oh, get up," she said to Juan, prodding him with the toe of her shoe. He felt solid, with blood and bones. "Don't fairy mothers ever tell their children not to cry over spilled milk?"

Juan lifted his head from his trembling hands. "Spilled milk?"

She shrugged. "It's an idiom."

Without breaking eye contact, Juan slid his hand along the floor and grasped his pen. Had it always had a star on its back end? The clinic lights came on, and stayed. The water fountain shut off. He tore off a strip of his shirt and dabbed it against his eyes. "Spilled milk, you say?"

Seneca sized him up, which didn't take very long. His face and muscled upper body remained a little handsome, but it was different now. Stranger now. Like he were a drawing of an adult man crumpled in half at the bottom, with arms and legs too short for his adult body.

She tapped her nails against one elbow. "So… You came to see Liam today because you were assigned to be his fairy godfather."

Juan sighed. He didn't look angry. He looked… tired. Drooping, dented, shell of himself. He pushed into the air. Four wings fluttered, pair by pair.  _"Sí,_ Señora _._  I must apologize for my most unfortunate performance."

"Mm. And you turned Liam into a dog. Didn't you?"

His shoulders heaved in a shrug that answered everything and more. "Hmm," Seneca said. She digested this information for all of three seconds. Her nails tapped again. "Let me ensure I understand. You used magic to turn my son into a dog. A  _Cinderella_  story for a child's fantasy. He ran out into the road, and now he's dead. Dead as a dog's toenail."

"I should have been watching him more intently," Juan whispered. He lifted a hand as though to smack himself in the cheek, but quivered and let it drop before it could come in contact with his handsome skin.  _"Sí."_

Seneca rolled her eyes. She itched her nails along her shoulder. Her nails weren't made for itching, but the prickling along her skin was beginning to drive her crazy. "So, I understand that I now have five months to enjoy your charming company before my memory is erased of fairy knowledge entirely. With magic. My pregnancy saved me because your commander, or captain, or boss, or whoever that was, took pity on my unborn baby."

_"Sí."_

She considered this too, one hand resting over the slight bulge of her stomach. "And… you're going to become my unborn son's fairy godfather, and watch after him when I'm not around, too. Is that right?"

Juan hunched into his shoulders. "If that is what I am asked to do by Jorgen, then _sí._ It is not usual for godparents to tend to a child so young. Liam… He was a special case. There are certain environments which are poison, and when there is great money and influence clearly seen in a child's future, there can be times when the Amity program makes exceptions to some of the more usual rules. I stayed by Liam's side from the time he was two years old. He always did so love to draw."

He left it at that. Burning eyes, judging eyes.

"I want to see Liam now. The dog."

Juan's mouth tightened. "No. I am forbidden from allowing that. The memories of death are far more difficult to erase when they are tied so tightly with passions of the heart."

Oh well. That about summed it up then, didn't it? Seneca glanced both left and right. Now that Jorgen and the whirlwind had left and Juan had stopped crying, the clinic front was looking back to normal. Cindy and Forrest were slumped in their chairs, cheeks pressed to papers on the desk. They snored in unison. The two police officers slept on the floor, their bodies stiff and straight like logs. A muffled noise behind one of the other doors suggested a lone fairy was at work, shaking a yellow canister in her hand and using it to wipe minds clean. A dog barked. Deep bark, big dog.

Folding her hands behind her back, Seneca walked towards the front doors. Juan bobbed after her, his wingbeats nearly silent. He lifted his wand, and the door directly in front of her swung open. Unseen hand, magic hand. Juan flicked his wand again, and glittered as he changed his form. His legs grew longer. His wings shriveled and disappeared.

"You look almost human," she said.

Juan looked at her, looked the type of man who would enthuse over the compliment. Eye bags sagging. Tired fairy. After three seconds, he said,  _"Gracias."_

Outside, Seneca tilted back her head. The sun cut through her eyelashes. She breathed the scents of summer. Green leaves, sticky heat. The two police cars were still at the curb, an officer sleeping inside each of them. No sign of Bennett or the convertible. Seneca debated throwing a fit, but then decided to walk home. It would allow her exercise, publicity, and a chance to talk to Liam's fairy. Besides that, the mansion sat only eight blocks away.

She started across the parking lot. "What's it like to be magical?"

Juan rubbed his eyes with both fists. He followed, but slowly. "Ah. Fairies were always meant to guide the lost and lonely hearts of mortal lands. The Fairies with the schooling and licenses act as guardians to those who are in need. We care for them in their youth, to make them happy, and go to help another child and leave the first with the memory of happiness, although the memories of Fairy magic must be taken for our own protection. We call ourselves 'fairy godparents.' I myself entered such a world the moment I was born; my  _mamá_  works the Wandpoint Galaxy to this day. My  _papá_ , he is not with her. They speak Elrulian mostly there." A sniffle, and a second. "Yes. It is wonderful to hold great power, but there are Rules which keep our peace. It is hard, each time, to love and leave a mortal child."

"Yes, but…" Seneca shaped an imaginary globe with her hands. "To be able to control a force capable of creating, destroying, or changing something at your command. Instantly, everywhere. As an author, I find that incredible. The ability to create life!"

Juan said nothing. His walking movements were fluid, as though he hovered above the ground even without his wings, but when Seneca glanced down, she could see him struggling to place one foot in front of the other. Each step went from heel to toe. Pushed. Forced. Unfamiliar.

She lowered her arms. "I wonder if you could use your magic to help me with my research. I write about dragons. I've never liked the way I've built them."

"It is possible I may consider it. You are under my watch now. It means we shall have plenty of time in need of passing together." Juan wiped his face again. "Forgive me for my tears. I am so, so very sorry about your son. Liam had a heart of melted chocolate. He always drew places to visit, and I would take him there. He drew animals I read to him in picture books for fairy children, or animals which he created from his own mind. He would have proceeded to do very great things, especially with the money he could have."

Seneca shrugged.

They left the parking lot for the sidewalk that ran along the main road. There were people out, here and there. Still no sign of Bennett. At an intersection, as they waited for the red hand in the crossing box to turn into the little man who signaled safety, Juan looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Stop doing that."

The hand changed. Seneca stepped into the crosswalk. "Excuse me?"

Juan flew… Well, he walked in front of her, a bit clumsy under all his long limbs. He moved backwards so he could face her. Blocking her path. His hands were tight. "You insult me, to be so unkind to a child you have birthed this way. You insult my people. Have you the  _slightest_  idea how many of the Fairies would wish to take your baby for their own? If you but knew how much I myself wanted a baby which was born to be mine, with the woman that I love, would you change then? How if it were possible for my magic to draw the child out of you, then in the beat of a wing, I would agree to nurture him inside me until his birth?"

"Surely you can have a baby of your own if you want one so badly," she said, examining her nails. A streak of paint had chipped off her thumb. She made a face.

"Alas!" When Juan stepped backwards onto the curb, he slapped his wrist across his forehead and squeezed his eyes tight. "I cannot indulge my selfish passions, for to do so would be to act against the greatest Fairy laws, which are sacred to our kind."

With a spin of his pen, he summoned a thick book with a dusky purple cover into his hands. Across the front, in golden script, were the words  _El Rules._  The pages, edged in the same gold, shimmered like bars. Without looking down, Juan opened the book to its middle. Seneca leaned her head away. Tiny print swam before her eyes. She skimmed a bit of legalese along the lines of  _Section P Subsection X_  before her mind glazed over.

"It's against your laws for a fairy to have a baby?" she managed to piece together. It didn't say that in the book anywhere she could see, but Juan seemed to believe it did, so she went with it. "Hm. It doesn't seem right to let a little law stop you, if you really want a baby. I wouldn't. I didn't. It's your life. Tell your own story. If you're short on cash, I suppose I could let you borrow some at a fair interest rate."

Juan glared at her. The red hand had returned, so Seneca walked past him along the sidewalk; she'd cross at the next light. He snapped the book shut. It disappeared into a cloud of dust. In a silent battle of wills, both of them resisted the urge to cough. "There are the rules," he insisted. "I am not one who makes a habit to break the rules."

"I suppose you won't be getting your baby then." Seneca went back to her nails.

The fairy sighed. He took his pen from his pocket again, and as he walked beside her, he held it between the forefingers on each hand. "I have decided. I intend to watch your new son grow, no matter what else Jorgen or the Amity program assign me to. No other fairy knows your family as well as I do. The baby does not deserve the same fate as his precious brother. I shall ensure my old mistakes are not repeated. There shall be no wishes granted for children who draw only pictures and do not speak the thoughts of their heart."

Seneca switched to her other hand. The polish on these nails was better. She should get them trimmed anyway. It was getting irritating to hit the typewriter keys. "Can you do that? It sounded to me that you were just fired. Or placed on probation, or however your thing works."

Juan's fingers tightened around the pen in his hand.  _"That_  does not matter. I shall read El Rules from one cover to the other and back again. If you devote years to study, there are ways the right things can be done without having to break any of the rules. Which is very good for the sake of your life."

"Excuse me? My life?"

Juan continued to stare straight ahead. They were coming up on another intersection, a bit busier than the last one, that they would want to cross in both directions. "You," he said, "disgust me. To not mourn the child that you lost. You disgust me because I know you will not change in how you treat the second child of yours. Especially once your memories of this have been taken away. You disgust me because I cannot stop you. Our rules prevent me. I cannot fight for an unborn child. It will take me time to study El Rules and solve this problem on my own."

"I suppose we're even." Seneca flicked her hair behind her shoulders. "All this time, you were living in my house with magic at your fingertips. And you didn't even ask how I was doing, or if I'd appreciate so much as a glass of water. You somehow found the sanity to drain two years of your life alongside  _him_. You know, just because Liam was a needy baby, it doesn't mean that I didn't need anything."

They had reached the intersection, but just as Seneca was about to step off the curb, the white man in the crossing box disappeared. In its place floated a smoldering star. Cars screeched on sudden brakes. She stumbled back. The intersection had ground to a standstill. Puzzled horns blared. When Seneca looked up, she saw that every stoplight had flared bright purple.

"That," said Juan, his teeth embedded in his words, "is not my job. I am the advocate of children who cannot stand up for themselves. You are a woman who already has all that she could want."

Seneca turned her head. Juan simmered beside her, his lower lip curled.

"How  _dare_  you?" she asked. It took only one movement, quick movement, to press her fingertips against his throat. He was warm beneath her hand. Warm as iron, warm as stoves. "I crave love more than anything in the universe. And you are a man who wants a child. Perhaps we could make an arrangement."

 _"¿Qué?"_ Juan went cross-eyed. It lasted for a single second, but one second was all she needed. Seneca flung her arms around his neck. Her lips went to his. A spark. They only connected for an instant, because Juan was so much faster. He caught her shoulders and shoved her off. She may have fallen to the ground, if he hadn't maintained a handcuff grip on both her wrists. Horns continued to blare behind them. If what Juan had said about his natural magic affecting the world around him without him requiring a magic wand, she could only imagine what troubles were ravaging the intersection now.

"Oh, don't fight it." Seneca couldn't help but laugh at the stunned expression smeared across his face. "I'm a seductive woman, you're a sexy man. We have five months to get to know each other. Why not loosen up and see where things go?" She pinched the bit of bicep bulging beneath the tear in one sleeve. "You wouldn't really let them wipe my mind, would you, honey?"

Juan's glower sent the stoplights sparking, from the way the cars stopped and started behind her. Their changing colors reflected in his eyes.  _"¡Ay, caramba!_ I ask, are you in your proper frame of mind, Señora? I already said to you, I am deeply in love with another woman. When a fairy falls in love, he loves his love forever. And even if I were not so in love with  _mi amor_ Wanda, never would I in five hundred thousand years consider an affair with you!" Then he really did shove her back. Seneca's heel hit the edge of the curb. She caught herself by grabbing the pole with the crossing button that never worked. Juan bore down on her. Sizzling eyes, violet eyes. Chest puffed like a peacock. "Such an insult, I will not stand for. I do not hold a place in my heart of hearts, which is the greatest of my many fine muscles, for a woman who tells herself she will not love her own children."

The cars rolled along on their ways behind her. Sometimes they beeped. Even so, Seneca did not flinch. She curled her nails into the palms of her hands.

"What is the point of this anyway? You watching over my baby, crying over how unhappy he'll be - unhappy enough to need a magical fairy to flit around sprinkling pixie dust and whisking away his problems - while you leave me here to suffer a marriage with a man who will hardly even touch me! What am I supposed to do? How can I regain my sanity after a decade spent with him? What about my needs? When do I get a godparent to rescue me?" Instead of stepping towards him, Seneca stepped away, just barely off the curb. She flung her arms to either side. "Do you have any idea what it's like to slide from one day to the next with every pore on your skin desiring to touch someone who doesn't love you back? And- and knowing you have no chance to win his passions? That no matter what you've given up for him or how good you try to be, you just have no chance at all? Am I expected to be okay with that?"

Juan looked down at the pen lying in his hands. He rubbed his thumb along its yellow star cap. With a sigh, he gave it a single twist. Twisted it back. His coat tails fluttered. He bent his head. "Ah. Love is tricky material, even for a fairy to understand. If… if the gorgeous woman who stole my heart appeared here at my side and threw herself into my fabulously chiseled arms, then I wonder if I would love her no longer. I expect to crave the thought of kissing her forever, but I shall never overstep my place. For if my actions caused her to leave the husband she chose with her willing soul, then I should never be able to live with myself again. I love her and I want her, but I do not wish her unhappiness. And she is happy now."

His fingers went into his hair, his shoulder to the pole that bore the crossing signs. Her pole. Their pole. He laughed in a choke. "I love my spitfire Wanda! Her decision to marry the great warrior Cosmo I respect a thousand times, even when every part of me is bleeding on the ground. I love her and cannot deny it. I love her more than metaphors can say. I love her, and never shall I love another woman again." Fingers turned to fists. Spluttered laugh again, arm across the eyes. "Even if it means I never bear a child of my own. Pah! I crave the love of no woman but my Wanda. In my cowardly weakness, I care for her too much to draw myself away from her for good. I must dance with her again, even if for but one night."

"We're  _married!"_  It was summer. Trucks with windows rolled down. Busy road. Stopped lights. Seneca stood there and screamed at him anyway, regardless of her status, uncaring of her tears. "Bennett swore he wanted me, and he expects me to keep on living like some- like some-  _monk_. How is that fair?"

With each word she flung at him, Juan winced until he'd nearly shrunk back to his fairy size. His edges were flickering. Coat tails turning into wings. Slip away, fly away. Abandonment. He would not look at her. He raised his palms, leaving his pen to float in the air beside his cheek as though it dangled from an invisible string. "Señora, please-"

Seneca whirled on her heels. She marched straight across the crosswalk without bothering to look both ways, or check the lights. Cars shrieked at her. Seneca ignored them. Juan would protect her from a handful of cars. He was willing to use his magic for that. He cared about her life for the sake of the baby inside her. No reason further.

She could hear him chasing after her, his feet slapping the road in an awkward rhythm. "Señora-"

Not much farther now. She just had to reach the train tracks. "It's really unfair," she said over her shoulder. "To think. Of all fairy godfathers, I end up with the one who would actually refuse me. I could be your Wanda person someday. I could be your Wanda by tomorrow. You could whisk me away from this dreary city and into a magical world. Just the two of us. Wouldn't your magic let you do that?"

"I cannot," he said, putting his hands out to either side, as though this were a thought he had toyed with and talked himself out of a million and one times before. "It is a pointless endeavor, for you would not be Wanda. I would not be Bennett. It is madness to woo the heart of a woman unless guided by the fiery passions of love! … Aside from that, a human and a fairy? Pah! It could never be. It is against El Rules."

Seneca mulled over her thoughts, saying nothing more until, at last, she stepped through the front gates of the Buxaplenty mansion.

"I think your rulebook is stupid. And you're an idiot if you let it stand between you and your happiness."

Juan gasped, his fingers flying to his mouth.  _"Exclamación de sorpresa!_ Do not insult the power and authority contained within the crisp and loving pages of El Rules! For without rules to hold our society together, it is inevitable that Fairies should return to the olden days when magic was but a chaotic plaything of tricksters and cruelty. This cannot be permitted."

Seneca tossed her hair behind one shoulder as she walked up the pathway. "You're a fairy. Magic should be your master, not the judicial system. Since when did some all-powerful creature ever let himself be subject to a few petty laws? I'm certain you could off your boss with a flick of your hand; he didn't look too bright."

"But El Rules are what make us a peaceful people of love and order. Most especially, love." Juan summoned the rule book into his hands with another cloud of dust. This, he thrust against Seneca's face. "This book is a precious guide to all that a Fairy must hold dear in his life. It is our code of honor."

"Yawn." She reached underneath his arms for the door handle. "You may as well trade in your Spanish flair for a French maid's outfit, because it sounds to me like you're the biggest lapdog for these hoity-toity rules of yours there has ever been."

 _Poof!_ The heavy book disappeared. Juan shoved his fingers in his ears, squeezing his eyes to crinkles. "Stop this! Your mockery stings with the fury of a thousand ants! You do not understand the majesty of the Fairy Council. Without El Rules, we are chaos. Without El Rules, we are nothing."

Seneca rolled her eyes. "I see. It's because of your beloved rules that you let Liam die on a cold examination table, isn't it? Not because you didn't have the power to save him. You just didn't want to break your adorable little laws."

"Stop it, I say!" Strangled voice, glowing tears. Sunlight tears, shadow tears. "This is untrue! I am no  _bruja!_ I am no _luz mala!_ I am no dishonest reaper of traveling souls. We have come beyond the olden days of Fairykind. I shall never be what my  _papá_  is!"

"I'm a writer, Einstein. I call them like I see them. And what I  _don't_  see is why you feel you deserve to call yourself 'good' if you're willing to let a good little boy die." Seneca reached for the doorbell, but the button turned to applesauce beneath her finger. She wrenched back her hand. When she spun around, Juan had popped into his undersized (yet muscular) fairy form once again. The fairy hovered above the Buxaplenty logo engraved in the porch, arm outstretched. Whisks of wind twirled around him. He aimed his pen between her eyes, and it wasn't a pen at all, but a magic wand that crackled with power stolen from the stars.

"Señora Seneca Cajallena. You are a Buxaplenty, with the riches from generations of two wealthy families under your command. Ought I to scold you for letting one child in this country to go hungry for a night? With all of my fabulously near-infinite powers, should I hold you accountable and punish you for every time across the past two years alone that I have known you to walk by a struggling family in need? All the times you chose to look the other way when a man blind or homeless crossed your path? Each day that you mocked those who would join your writing groups, for while they had the skills to critique your pieces, you looked down upon them for the middle-class backgrounds they came from?"

The cyclone whipping around him nearly tore the lashes from her eyelids. Seneca inhaled. She slipped one of her feet behind the other, squirming her toes into the ground. Her palms pressed against the door behind her. Solid door, stable door.

"… No."

"Then consider what you can do to help this human world, and leave your concerns regarding all things Fairy in my sexy manicured hands. You are only human. I am merely fae. I perform magic, not miracles."

The wind died away as his voice trailed off at the end. Juan's eyes (Cotton eyes, flower eyes) softened in their centers. His long wings fluttered like whispering paper cranes. Floating forward on his stomach, he reached out to touch his hand below her chin.

 _"Oye…_  I can be your closest secret friend these few months we must share as I am on probation, Señora, or I can be your most  _loco_  enemy. I can weep passionate tears with you, read and reread so many stories with you, and tell you all the wonders of Fairy magic that I know." His fingers slipped away. "But I cannot love you, for I despise the lines you have allowed yourself to cross. I suggest you do not test what remains of my limited patience. Then I shall have no reason to seek vengeance upon you once your memories are gone."

"Is it me?" she mumbled to the ground.

_"¿Qué?"_

"Never mind." Seneca tried to turn, only for Juan to grab her shoulder. She flinched at his hot fingers. Sausage fingers. And those tender (if distrusting) eyes. He had eyes. She relented, slumping against the doors. "I'm just not pretty enough for Bennett."

Juan made a teetering motion with his hand, his star-tipped wand pinned between two fingers. "You are, how do you say, in many ways not good enough for Bennett."

Wasn't teasing, stung so hard. Might have teased, but far too late. Seneca bent her head until her chin touched her necklace. "I don't understand what more I could have done. I did everything right, as best as I could… I wish-"

"Ah ah ah." Juan pressed his forefinger into her lips. He lifted his wand with the other hand. The star glowed like a lightning bug. "No wishes for you,  _mi cariño_. You are an adult. And as adults do, you must face your problems, how do you say, in the face with your face? Yes. Your husband will be eating his supper now. Seafood. I shall go home to begin my paperwork, and return to you tomorrow. It is as though I am a wave which has never washed upon this shore at all. I'll call you."

After flexing his muscles once, he disappeared in a swirl of purple dust. Seneca coughed, three times. When she raised her head again, there was no sign that the Spanish-speaking fairy had ever been. Only a few tiny glints of glitter sparkled on her white shoes.

Well. Well then. There wasn't much left to do now but… head inside.

Red tiles, creaking chandelier. Cutting through the sitting room across thick carpet and a hairy rug. One hundred eighty-nine rooms in the Buxaplenty mansion, with more being added every year. Dining room, dining room… Where was it, again? May as well take a smoke first…

No. No, that could wait. Seneca had found what she was looking for. She leaned her hand against the curve of the archway to the dining room, where Bennett ate alone at the glass table. Across him lay an empty spot, with food prepared but the plate untouched. He ate neatly, for a dragon. Fish had always been his greatest weakness. Butter most of all. Today it was broiled oysters, imported bluefin tuna, turtle soup, and grilled eels.

Seneca stepped beside his chair. She waited. After thirty seconds accented with nothing but dignified chewing and swallowing noises, Bennett looked up.

"Mm. Darling. So you made it back after all. I noticed a speck of rust on the hood of the convertible and it looked as though it were threatening rain, so I decided to drive home without you. No hard feelings, I presume."

He did not ask about Liam. Not about the vet clinic. Not the police. Not Juan. And definitely not Liam. Not her good boy Liam. His eyes lingered on hers for only half the time he'd spoken, before dropping back to the eel on his plate. Smudged plate, imperfect plate, better-than-she-was plate. Seneca clenched her hands into fists.

"I changed my mind, Bennett. I want to keep it."

"The convertible?" His fork wandered over to a piece of lobster. "I thought you wanted to sell it."

"No, we can still sell the car."

"Mm." Lobster near his mouth, hovering still. "The dress, then? I happen to like that one on you."

"The baby. I don't want to put him up for adoption."

Bennett glanced up and blinked. Startled blink, hopeful blink. "You want to keep the  _baby?_ "

"As a matter of fact, I do." Seneca patted her hand against her stomach. "Remington would be a sweet name, with far more power behind it than Indigo. No. Perhaps Rembrandt, after the great magician painter of the Netherlands. Yes, he must be named after an artist. Rembrandt Buxaplenty. Our little Remy."

 _"Your_  little Remy." Absent-minded.

"Excuse me?"

Bennett swallowed his bit of lobster and reached with his fork towards another. "He isn't mine. We both know that. After everything I've ever done for you, to think that you went behind my back this way."

On this point, Seneca would hold her ground. She took one step sideways, scratching her heels across the tile. "It wasn't entirely behind your back. You knew Oliver was over. For money's sake, we threw a party that day. We had guests."

"Mm, yes… Family guests." His voice curdled into the beginnings of a sneer. Eel instead of lobster this time, on the fork. Glinting fork. "And you snuck off to lay with one of them. That's twice you've betrayed my faith in you now. Agreeing to host that party must have been your plan all along, just to guilt a little more money out of me, just to threaten blackmail-"

"Maybe Remy would be yours if you had ever paid a lick of attention to my feelings in the last decade." Her hands clenched the front of her chest. "What do you want from me, Bennett? To content myself to the life of some celibate mountain monk? To starve me when there are fairies out there begging for a child just as much as I have? You know I wanted one! You know I wanted  _yours!_  That's why I married you!"

His gaze fell to his food.

"You are my husband. I can't live like this forever, starved of attention and unloved beyond belief. It's cruel and abusive!"

He tilted his head at that poisoned word,  _cruel_. Stood up. As Seneca fumbled with her hands, Bennett took hold of her shoulders and kissed her, gently, with his lips. He tasted just like eel. Seneca didn't close her eyes, so she knew that Bennett didn't either. It was hardly even her lips that he kissed. Mostly he got her teeth. They were clenched, her heaving breaths shaking her body. Her crying wasn't very ladylike.

Bennett pulled back. Three cold fingers trailed up her cheek to her eye. He pressed in his thumb to push one tear away. "Mm, yes. I suppose the local gossip has gotten rather out of hand as of late, hasn't it? Eee… We'll do what Buxaplentys always do when under the scorn of accusing eyes. We'll pretend. Tell the world that I'm the father, and from here until death do us part, I'll give you any night you ask, darling."

"What?" she croaked. Frozen heart, thawing heart, thumping heart. "You don't mean that. You don't love me enough."

"I can pretend." Bennett took her ears between his palms and bent her head forward. This time, he kissed the highest point of her nose. Slow kiss, promise kiss. "We won't tell Oliver. We won't tell anyone- even DNA tests won't be able to tell my brother and I apart. Mm… This Liam will be our heir. Once he's born, swear to him I'm his daddy, even if he begs to know the truth. Don't ever let on otherwise. I don't want it getting out that he isn't mine. People would talk, and I so hate keeping up pretenses."

"… Remy. My son - Our son - His name is Remy. He's a good boy, Remy."

"Remy." He released her shoulders, and picked up his plate. One quick movement, stabbing movement, and he'd scooped up another strip of meat on his fork. This, Bennett held to her mouth. "Oh, yes. Care for a bite of bluefin tuna, my darling? Ah, do try the turtle soup before you go. It's delightful."


End file.
